


Sea Angels

by Schgain



Category: BioShock
Genre: Adult Fear, Mentions of/Non Graphic Depictions of Drowning, Mild Surrealism, Mind Control, Nightmares, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 06:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12337095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: You are in Olympus Heights again. It's been flooded since you were last here, and you’re up to your knees in stagnant seawater. Glowing creatures swim around your shins, brightening when you disturb them. The going is slow, wading through the cold and stale mire, and you find yourself in a clearing to survey the land ahead. Your head seems to be under the waves though, and it's hard to breathe like this. Your lungs are convinced you are drowning with every inhale, and you try to suck in frigid air through your teeth."Evenin', Jackie." comes Fontaine's voice.





	Sea Angels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [t0talcha0s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/gifts).



> An art trade with t0talcha0s! Thank you so much!!
> 
> Comments are as always greatly appreciated but not mandatory.

You are in Olympus Heights again. It's been flooded since you were last here, and you’re up to your knees in stagnant seawater. Glowing creatures swim around your shins, brightening when you disturb them. The going is slow, wading through the cold and stale mire, and you find yourself in a clearing to survey the land ahead. Your head seems to be under the waves though, and it's hard to breathe like this. Your lungs are convinced you are drowning with every inhale, and you try to suck in frigid air through your teeth. 

"Evenin', Jackie." comes Fontaine's voice, cool and unperturbed, and you freeze. Your eyes scan the apartment balconies and walkways. It's empty. It's never empty; why is it empty now? In the absence of a weapon, your hands clutch each other over your heart. You're begging it to keep pounding for just another moment.

"Come to visit your old man? I haven't lived in that old coop for a couple'a years now, kid. Sorry for throwing a spanner in the works for your whole 'double patricide' plan." His voice is tinny- instinctively, you look at the radio on your hip. 

Spanner in the works. What a shitty pun. 

"Go away."

"The dog barks, huh?" he says. "Still only speaking when spoken to? Not even then, neither. Guess old habits die hard." 

"I'm not a dog." You say this slowly, with conviction, stilling the tremble in your voice.

"When you was just a tot you were all over them, huh. Never saw a kid who liked dogs as much as you. Dunno why, but it made for real easy leverage. And look at you now, tuggin' at your leash, still beggin' for scraps and doin' tricks."

You bristle. "I'm not--"

"Have a smoke, would you kindly?"

Your hand is already pulling a cigarette box out of your pocket and bringing the light to your mouth before you realize you don't have to listen to him anymore, and he laughs so hard he leans away from the microphone. You throw the cigarette into the water in disgust, watch the flame go out. Around it, the glowing creatures you cannot name also go out, one by one. The water is higher now, up to your waist, and it's cold. Trudging through it is hard, but there's a staircase ahead that you can take. There's an elevator closer to you, but the button panel swims in your field of vision and every time you reach for it, your finger never comes in contact with the cool metal. The encroaching water laps at the stairs.

"Good boyo," he says in his practiced brogue. You squeeze your eyes shut, thinking about biting his face off or crushing his skull with your wrench. Or better yet, grabbing it with one hand and draining Electro Bolt into him until he's nothing more than an education in Galvanism.

But that doesn't happen.

Instead you take his bait again, childish indigence hidden by an adult voice that turns your begging into a threat. "Stop it!"

But Frank just laughs harder, so he must see through you. He must see you as some scared child acting out for attention, must know the facade of your bravery, the nearly silent mask you wear. He must love to break it, force words from you, goad you with bait. He's not here to attack you, but he has other ways to hurt. Code Yellow could be forcing your pulse to shudder any moment now; he could threaten Tenenbaum, threaten your girls. 

Your girls. Panic rushes through you and the increased heart rate sends Code Yellow into action. Your heart flutters, then stops altogether, for a horrible moment. Pain wracks every part of you and you seize, crumpling. 

Your head dips beneath the flooded water, and you yell to Fontaine, who is still distantly laughing as he watches this ordeal. You're begging even as your mouth fills with seawater.

Please, please, please don't hurt my girls, please.

He does not have to touch you to hurt you, to remind you of who you are and what you were made for.

You open your eyes. ADAM use has never had a strong effect on your physical characteristics, and more than once have you vaguely wondered if Suchong and Tenenbaum had built you that way on purpose, an almost-sister. The only thing they couldn’t stop was the golden glow of your eyes; they illuminate your face and the surrounding water. In response, the glowing creatures turn on their own little orange lights, pulsing in their tummies as they flap transparent wings. 

You'd never been afraid of drowning, you think. Breathing has not become harder once you fell under; In fact it's become easier, and your heart doesn’t stop pounding but it does stop stuttering. The sea angels flutter around your head, and when you close your eyes you can still see them, orange tummies aglow. You don't know when you started crying. You've never been afraid of drowning, but you've always been afraid of him.

"Silent treatment, huh?" Fontaine doesn't know when to quit. Doesn't know that sound isn't supposed to travel through water like it does air, or that radios shouldn't work under water like this. Doesn't know anything about you. "You wound me, Jackie. Jabbed me with a needle four fuckin' times. I'd ask what kinda son does somethin' like that, but you ain't exactly a family man, either. No one ever likes a dog who bite the hand that feeds, do they, kiddo?" 

"Jack, are you listening to me?"

"Fucking answer me, you son of a--"

Your eyes snap open, illuminating one wall of your room with pale yellow light. Your heart is in your throat, and you're trembling. Your vocal chords attempt sound but only can manage a hoarse wheeze. You haven’t spoken a word in a year and a half now, no matter what your psyche thinks.

Your vision swims, a symptom that's only made worse when you sit up, shake off the blankets. Your feet know the way even when your brain can't find the fight to focus, and you stumble blindly into the bathroom.

Your hands are shaking too hard to open the toilet lid. You lurch, kneel, hands gripping the lip of the bathtub, vomit seawater and ADAM and yesterday's dinner. You give a wail suitable for a Protector, and the light above you turns on with a fluorescent hum.

"Jack?" comes a voice behind you, softened by cigarette smoke and sleeplessness. "What is the matter?" 

You whimper. When Tenenbaum comes to you now, it seems like you are under the ocean again and she is miles above. "Oh, motek," she empathizes. The pet name doesn’t ache like you feared it would. She figures you don't want to talk about it, and she'd be right. Dreams are an unspoken territory, one neither of you are brave enough to cross.They’re too realistic, too true to form, best belonging in the muddy past to be forgotten. 

So instead of pressing the matter, Tenenbaum sits down on the toilet and rubs your back gently as you expel more into the tub. She blows smoke up towards the vent, cigarette dangled between her fingers. "The diet you took while in Rapture was poor. Your body is not used to eating high nutritional content." She sighs. "This is a repeated venture with your body. Too many times, rapid nutrient shifts. IVs to solid foods to IVs to gene tonics to real foods. And then you go with smoking and drinking. I am not one to talk, yes, but..." she sighs again. 

You sob past your ruined larynx. You taste blood and ADAM, and don't dare look at the mess you've caused. 

"It gets easier. Let us start with smaller meals." 

You don't think anything will ever get easier.

**Author's Note:**

> A sea angel (Gastropoda clade Gymnosomata) is a small pelagic sea slug with bio-luminescent tendencies. Wonder if that rings any bells.


End file.
